Sweetman, Nicholas (1695–1786), catholic bishop of Ferns, was born in December 1695 at Collop's Well, in the parish of Newbawn, Clongeen, Co. Wexford. Details of his early life are scarce but it seems that he was of a wealthy family. He studied for the priesthood at Santiago in Spain and was ordained in 1719. Shortly afterwards he returned to Ireland, where he was appointed PP of St Fintan's, Mayglass. He was appointed treasurer of the diocese of Ferns in August 1732, and vicar general in July 1736.
Following the death in 1744 of Bishop Ambrose O'Callaghan of Ferns, he was nominated by James III, the Old Pretender, to succeed to the diocese. This recommendation was ratified by Pope Benedict XIV, and Archbishop John Linegar (qv) consecrated him as bishop of Ferns in March 1745. However, Sweetman immediately became embroiled in a dispute with the Franciscan friars of Wexford. He claimed that the house they were using as a friary had originally been the episcopal residence and he demanded it back. He also demanded a share of their Sunday collections and maintained that the friars were withholding diocesan records from him. These disputes remained unsettled at his death and he was later forced to build a new residence for himself in High St., Wexford. In 1745 he was arrested on suspicion of enlisting men for the army of the Pretender. He was brought to Dublin for interrogation but the lord lieutenant, Lord Chesterfield (Philip Dormer Stanhope (qv)), was so impressed by his dignified manner that he ordered his release. In 1747 he was named as the dignus for the vacant see of Armagh.
In October 1751 he signed an instrument of excommunication for three priests on charges of corruption and immoral conduct. One of these, Fr James Doyle, took his revenge by denouncing the bishop to the Castle authorities, claiming that he was recruiting for the Jacobite army. Sweetman was arrested once again, the warrant being signed by the lord lieutenant, the duke of Dorset (Lionel Cranfield Sackville (qv)), on 29 November 1751. He was brought to Dublin castle and subjected to a lengthy interrogation by a group of privy councillors. While he denied any knowledge of recruiting for the Jacobite army, he gave much information about the organisation of his diocese. The record of this interrogation was later reproduced by William P. Burke (qv) in his Irish priests in the penal times (1914). Sweetman's interrogators could find nothing against him and his release was ordered on 21 December 1751.
Throughout his episcopacy he carried out regular visitations in his diocese. His account of his 1753 visitation survives in the Ferns diocesan archive and has been published in Archivium Hibernicum, ii (1913). It is an interesting account of the state of an eighteenth-century rural diocese, and he made it obvious that, while there was a functioning church organisation, some of his priests were both poorly educated and uninterested in their work. Sweetman was a fluent Irish-speaker and approved of those priests who preached in Irish in order to reach the Irish-speaking population of the diocese.
By 1772 his health was beginning to fail and he petitioned Pope Clement XIV for the appointment of a coadjutor bishop. His nephew John Stafford was appointed coadjutor, leading to charges of nepotism from his Franciscan opponents. Sweetman strongly objected to the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 and was also an opponent of a test oath or oath of allegiance to the Hanoverian monarchy. Throughout 1774 he engaged in a lively correspondence on the subject with Archbishop John Carpenter (qv) and later refused to take the oath. In 1779 he gave a donation to the Wexford Volunteers and was criticised for this, due to the fact that the unit did not admit catholics. He continued to carry out ordinations in the diocese, one of those whom he ordained being Fr John Murphy (qv), who would later take part in the 1798 rebellion. Sweetman was an accomplished poet and composed verse in Latin, English, and Irish.
He died at his residence in Wexford on 19 October 1786. Due to his dispute with the Franciscans, he left instructions that he was not to be buried in the precincts of the friary as had been the case with several of his predecessors. His remains were taken to the family plot in Clongeen. There are collections of his papers in the diocesan archives in Ferns and Dublin.